


Trust Me

by votsalot



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Trans Girl Pidge, basically i just really like the idea of pidge being the one to fix shiro's arm, im a sucker for whump and also space dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 14:25:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7365088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/votsalot/pseuds/votsalot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pidge is having a late night snack when Shiro comes to her for help only she can provide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust Me

**Author's Note:**

> FYI, trans girl Pidge is my preferred Pidge, and I do use she/her pronouns throughout the story. Feel free to apply your own headcanons concerning Pidge's gender; being genderqueer myself I know how important it is.
> 
> This fic is probably set sometime after Sendak's attack on the Castle, and before Crystal Venom. Enjoy!

Pidge looked at the green, iridescent glop on her plate. She poked at it with her spork, uninterested in her late night snack. Lance had eaten the leftovers of what Hunk made for dinner, a strangely tangy but savory kind of casserole…thing made with the some of the Erusian produce they'd been given as a gift before their departure. And now all she had left was Coran's space goo, fresh from the tube.

She was sitting in the kitchen itself, preferring the smaller confines of the cooking area to the large loneliness of the dining room. Tables with empty chairs felt too much like the months without Matt and her dad. She swung her legs from her perch on top of the prep counter, missing Rover and missing her family.

"Quick snack before bed?"

Pidge looked to the open hallway door, where Shiro now leaned against the frame, still wearing his day clothes, arms crossed and eyebrows raised in good humor. Pidge herself was dressed to sleep, her body heavy with exhaustion.

"Yeah," she said, setting the plate beside her. "It's not very good though."

She slid off the counter, wincing slightly at the impact of her feet on the cool floor.

"What are you doing up so late, Shiro?"

Shiro cleared his throat quietly, "About that," he began. "I need your help with something."

And it was at this admission when Pidge began to see the fissures in his façade.

What had appeared earlier to be a nonchalant lean against the doorway now looked more like an attempt at support. His arms were crossed, but even with the distance between them Pidge could see the metal fingers of his right arm twitching non-stop at his side. He was almost cradling it. Shiro's face was pinched, a drained and pale color, a sheer sheen of sweat glistening on all visible skin.

"Shiro, sit down," she told him, a kernel of concern popping open in her chest. Well, more than a kernel. "Now. Over there."

Shiro took a shaky step towards the chair Pidge motioned to, but watching how unstable he was gave her reservations very quickly.

"Wait, actually - sit where you are, by the wall, okay?"

Pidge helped Shiro slide his back down the wall, settling him gently on the floor. His breathing was deep and even, but his eyes were closed, and he held his prosthetic arm even closer to his chest, his hand spread palm-open over his heart. He was uncharacteristically silent, and Pidge was unsettled that in such an alarming situation he had no verbal comfort to share.

"I'm going to get Allura and Coran," she told him as she kneeled at Shiro's side, hoping to alleviate his apparent suffering. His eyes snapped open, his flesh and bone hand taking a weak handful of her shirt sleeve.

"Don't," he whispered, in a softer version of the broken apprehension she'd earlier heard him use over the intercom with Sendak - before he knew she was listening. "Please, don't."

"But, Shiro," Pidge was confused, "You need to get to a healing pod, don't you?"

Shiro shook his head slowly and carefully. His eyes were half-lidded amidst his pain. "No," he said. "I don't want...don't want to go in the pod. I don't want them to put me on a bed, put me under-"

"Okay, okay," Pidge thought, maybe, she was beginning to grasp the situation. Possibly.

"Uh...okay, so, what are you saying? What's hurting?" she was fumbling, and more than likely getting more and more out of her depth with each second she didn't run for Allura or Coran. But seeing Shiro, her leader, the man who protected her brother, in such desperate want for discretion and help made her all the more determined to provide it.

Shiro closed his eyes again. "My arm. The Galra one. When Sendak electrocuted me...I think something shorted. Or broke, or...It's been getting worse since then."

Just talking seemed to exhaust him, and Pidge found herself marveling he was able to get himself to her at all. But as the marvel wore off, the frustration took its place.

"Why didn't you tell anyone?!"

"Told you...I don't want the pod..."

Pidge sighed, "Look, Shiro, what do you want me to do? What am I supposed to do? I am so not qualified to be looking at your arm in any way other than to just, like, admire it. Why me? Why-"

"I trust you."

"You..." her exasperation ebbed, Pidge softened. Shiro's fingers were still twitching, the servos making small strange mechanical noises as they struggled to right themselves. And even that was assuming it was servos that gave his arm mobility.

"I trust you, Pidge."

She took a deep breath. Alright.

"I won't get the others," she told him, watching as he visibly relaxed, his neck and shoulders loosing small amounts of tension, until all that remained was the taught posture Shiro held to combat his physical discomfort.

"But only," she stipulated, "if you stay awake. If you black out, I'll drag you to a cryo-pod myself."

"Got it, doctor," Shiro's lips quirked into a slight smile. A tired smile. "Or should I call you mechanic?"

Pidge settled down next to him, motioning towards his arm. "Can I?"

Nodding, he extended his metal limb so that it lay face up across Pidge's lap. She looked at it for a while first, then started running her hands over the exterior as she used to routinely do to Rover. She'd noticed that when Rover was having an internal error, the hardware, though relatively beyond her rapidly expanding knowledge of Galra tech, relied on sophisticated internal cooling systems to soothe its overheated pathways. The trouble areas were always warmer than the parts that were functioning normally.

She knew that Altean and Galra tech ran off of what amounted to the same thing, and given the obvious biological integration of Shiro's Galra arm into his central nervous system, it was logical for Pidge to assume that the quintessence from which Altean and Galra drew power was also what gave Shiro's limb the ability to move. Which meant that living beings themselves were hosts of quintessence.

"Interesting," she muttered to herself.

"What?"

"I'll tell you later. Sit back."

Shiro's entire arm felt warm to the touch, warmer than body temperature. It was like brushing against an iron or a stove just before it was hot enough to burn skin. No wonder it was causing him so much pain.

"I think I've figured it out," she informed her leader-turned-patient.

"Already?" Shiro's voice was hazy and surprised.

"Yep," she gently laid Shiro's arm in his own lap, internally wincing at his pallid expression and hitching breath.

"I'm pretty sure the internal cooling system - or its equivalent - got fried. Your arm is trying to self-repair, but what's broken is what usually enables the repair process."

He nodded slowly, taking in her words. It was all guesswork, but it was guesswork rooted in what that she knew was true, facts she'd felt with her hands or seen with her eyes. And that was the best kind.

"So, what next?" Shiro asked.

"We cool you down, of course," Pidge hoisted herself off the floor and began rummaging around the cabinets of the kitchen, only emerging after she found a mid-sized bowl and a bucket-like container big enough for Shiro to submerge his prosthetic.

She filled the bucket with ice, grabbed an armload of hand towels, and filled the bowl with water before returning to Shiro's side. It was easy putting the towels in the water and folding ice cubes inside them. It was less easy watching Shiro trying to keep his face from contorting as the towels were wrapped around his limb.

"How did you figure this out, Pidge?" he asked, trying not to grit his teeth. Pidge extended her hand, and Shiro hesitated a beat before taking it. Despite his pain his grip was loose.

"Rover," she replied. "You both consist of the same tech, and I noticed whenever he repaired himself, he got warm. But, you know, like, computer fans? It's kind of like that. Without it, he'd get too hot, and the heat from the repairs itself would cause more damage. That's what happened to you....um. I think..."

Shiro was silent for a moment. "So, I'm an overheated laptop right now?"

"Yeah. Pretty much. Maybe," Pidge winced. She hated how unsure she sounded. "H-how are you feeling?"

"Better."

"Really?! That's great!"

"The pain's getting better. You did an amazing job. Thank you."

"No problem. Are you ready to walk?"

"Not yet,” Shiro trailed off, but turned to look her in the eyes. “...and Pidge, I'm sorry I put you in this position. It was irresponsible of me."

She shrugged, trying to hide how shaken she’d been. "It's okay, I mean, I figured it out..."

Shiro shook his head, pieces of hair sticking to his face. "No, I should've gone to Allura or Coran. But..."

Pidge watched in brief silence as he internally relived one of the atrocities that had happened to him sometime in the past year. She didn’t know if he would ever tell them everything he remembered, and she wasn’t sure she even wanted to hear it.

"The pod?" she answered her own question quietly, and noted how much more quickly Shiro seemed to find his grounding.

"Yes, I'm sorry, I..."

"It’s okay, Shiro. You don't have to explain if you don't want to."

He gave her shoulder a soft squeeze with his unaltered fingers. 

"...Thanks. Pidge, I'm going to tell the others about this in the morning. But could I ask a favor of you?"

"Yep!"

"If this happens again, will you be my mechanic?"

"W-what? You want me to do this again?" She couldn’t believe it. 

"I told you, Pidge. I trust you."


End file.
